PARIS — EDF, the world’s biggest operator of nuclear power plants, is planning to make a bid for the reactor business of Areva in the next few weeks, EDF’s chief executive said on Tuesday, confirming that a reorganization of France’s nuclear industry was at hand.

“There’s a certain logic” to a deal for the reactor unit, Areva NP, Jean-Bernard Lévy, EDF’s chairman and chief executive, told shareholders at his company’s annual general meeting. Areva, he noted, “is in a fragile state.”

EDF, also known as Électricité de France, is France’s main power utility and much larger than Areva, having posted revenue of 73 billion euros, or $83 billion, last year, compared with Areva’s €8.3 billion. That should give it the financial muscle needed to design and build multibillion-dollar nuclear projects.

The French government is the most important player in the country’s nuclear establishment, owning 87 percent of Areva and 84.5 percent of EDF. The state has long targeted nuclear technology for special consideration as a flagship export sector, and the crisis at Areva has involved officials at the highest levels of President François Hollande’s government.

“I’m convinced that the nuclear industry has a future, that it’s a strength of our country,” Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, told Parliament on Tuesday. The government’s role, he added, was to help Areva get back onto a “sound footing.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Lévy laid out his thinking about the future of the industry in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, saying a takeover of the reactor business was the best means of preserving Areva’s technological expertise while “opening a path to alliances with others, with industrial partners, French or foreign.”

Reports have put the value of Areva’s reactor business at around €3 billion. Mr. Lévy did not indicate in the interview how much he was prepared to pay, saying only that it must be done “at market price.” He also said any deal must shield EDF from risks associated with Areva’s past projects.

Areva, an important partner of EDF, was intended to be France’s nuclear technology export champion, but it has stumbled badly. Its problems stem in part from the shadow cast by the Fukushima disaster on the nuclear industry, but also from its own missteps, including a bet that a technology known as E.P.R., for European pressurized reactor, is the wave of the future.

While an E.P.R. project in southern China appears to be more or less on track, one plant in Finland and another in France are badly over budget and behind schedule, and the expected orders for the E.P.R. have not materialized.

Without its reactor business, Areva could continue in reduced form, providing its global customers with services like fuel supply, maintenance and waste disposal.

Philippe Varin, who is both Areva’s chairman and a member of the EDF board, told Reuters on Tuesday that any deal would have to make industrial sense.

“The project must ensure financial closure for the short term,” Mr. Varin was quoted by Reuters as saying. “And over the long haul, it must ensure the new Areva is a robust actor.”

A spokeswoman for Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister, declined to comment, but she pointed to an interview Mr. Macron gave to the French magazine L’Usine Nouvelle that was published on Monday.

In the interview, Mr. Macron noted that a reorganization of the industry would help focus the sector on coherent goals and end what has at times been destructive competition, like when the two companies pursued conflicting paths in China, or when EDF began sourcing its uranium from Russian companies while Areva was increasing its own output.

“The most effective organization of the French nuclear industry is one in which new commercial ties are established between EDF and Areva, so that one doesn’t create value at the expense of the other,” Mr. Macron told the magazine, adding that the government was awaiting proposals from the industry leaders and expected to have a clear plan by summer.

“For the reactor business, there’s a consensus for them working together,” Mr. Macron added in the interview. “The question is how far to go in industrial and financial terms.”

Areva posted a net loss for 2014 of €4.8 billion, raising concerns that it would need an injection of new capital from the government. On May 7, it said it would cut as many as 6,000 jobs from its worldwide work force of 45,000 as it tries to cut costs by €1 billion annually.